Daniel Craig explains his stormtrooper cameo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Star Wars franchise may be vast, but there’s just not enough room for everyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a Jedi, a Stormtrooper, or a nerf herder to make an appearance. If you do have a desire to travel to a galaxy far, far away, it helps to be an international secret agent. It’s well known that Daniel Craig made a cameo appearance as a Stormtrooper in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the actor recently explained to BBC Radio 1 just how that cameo came to be.

Daniel Craig was able to use his James Bond clout in order to appear in The Force Awakens, in which he played a Stormtrooper who interrogated Rey (Daisy Ridley) before falling victim to the old Jedi mind trick.

That’s the perk that opens a few doors because I don’t think I could’ve if I hadn’t have been James Bond. Having the chutzpah to do that is because I’m James Bond. I wouldn’t have done that any other way. But I asked the second A.D. on Star Wars – who’s our second A.D. – a lovely guy called Ben Dixon. I said, ‘Ben, come on. Can we get me in as a stormtrooper?’ He went ahead and asked J.J. [Abrams].

The actor was only hoping that he could make a cameo in the background of Star Wars: The Force Awakens but was very surprised when they gave him an actual scene. “I just thought I was going to stand in the back holding a gun,” Craig said. “I would have been happy with that, but yet he gave me a scene.” There had been rumours that Daniel Craig would be appearing in the film months prior to its release, but trickster that he is, Craig went out of his way to vehemently deny it.

Daniel Craig will next be seen in No Time to Die, which will finally be released in the UK on September 30th and in the US on October 8th.